Online video viewing over TV to surge
130 billion programs streamed or downloaded by 2013
By Danny King -- Video Business, 12/31/2008
DEC. 31 | The number of programs video-streamed or downloaded by broadband customers to their televisions will jump tenfold between 2009 and 2013 as content distributors, television-service providers and television makers all make it easier for customers to access the Web from their living rooms, ABI Research () said in a report.About 130 billion programs will be streamed or downloaded globally in 2013, up from 11.6 billion next year, as the number of broadband-video customers almost doubles from this year to about 940 million people worldwide, according ABI Research. Additionally, the average customer will watch about 140 downloaded or streamed videos on their televisions in 2013, up from about 17 next year.
"All stakeholders in the online video ecosystem are eyeing the living room," said Michael Wolf, research director at ABI Research, in a statement. "With the continued adoption of network-connected video game consoles, the porting of popular online video services such as Hulu and Netflix onto third party consumer electronics devices, and network operators' growing interest in over-the-top video, we see this market for TV-displayed online video continuing to grow."
Netflix and Blockbuster have been aggressive this year at trying to attract their customers to their digital delivery services, while Amazon.com, the world's largest Internet retailer, revamped its video-download service.
Netflix, the largest U.S. movie-rental service via mail, this year reached agreements to have its inventory of more than 12,000 streaming titles to be accessed through Roku set-top boxes, TiVo digital-video recorders, Microsoft Xbox 360 videogames consoles and LG Electronics and Samsung Blu-ray players. The company expects its streaming service to double the company’s subscriber base within a decade.
Blockbuster recently started selling a set-top box that plays digital downloads from Blockbuster.com directly on consumers' TV sets, allowing the largest U.S. movie-rental chain to compete directly with Netflix and Apple in the digital content delivery field. The company integrated what had been known as its Movielink digital download service into Blockbuster's Web site in July, almost a year after Blockbuster bought the service from the five major studios for $6.6 million.
Amazon said in July that it replaced its Unbox video-download service with a video-on-demand service that allows customers to stream television and movie content in an effort to continue to build media revenue. The company also has an agreement with Sony in which owners of the TV-makers Bravia HD sets can buy a component allowing direct-to-TV downloads.
